Patrick Hennessy writes about politics for the Telegraph.

Labour's worst week ever sees it rise in poll

Curiouser and curiouser…Labour has just endured what was pretty much its worst few weeks ever in the lifetime of the modern party. Cabinet ministers resigned with stinging attacks on Gordon Brown, the PM narrowly survived a plot to unseat him and the party, batted by the MPs' expenses scandal, recorded its lowest share of the vote in a national election since 1910.

All this would be certain to have a pretty dramatic effect on Labour's standing in the polls you'd think. And you'd be right – but not in the direction you might have thought.

Today's ICM poll for The Guardian shows Labour up five points (yes, up five points) from the ICM survey we carried in The Sunday Telegraph a few days before the European elections which sensationally showed the party in third place behind the Lib Dems on 22 per cent – in general election voting – and helped spark panic in senior government ranks (we are the "other newspaper" coyly referred to in the Guardian's report).

Meanwhile the Tories are down one on 39 per cent from our poll, while the Lib Dems, who most see as being least damaged by the expenses scandal, are down a whopping seven points on 18 per cent.

I firmly believe in the truth of the dictum "all publicity is good publicity" but surely this is stretching it a little too far. Memo to Mandelson: Perhaps Labour should launch a failed putsch against Brown every week.